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Is your experiment really necessary?: Animals are used only when strictly required, researchers claim. But there are no clear rules to guide them

18 April 1992

By SHEILA SILCOCK

The notion of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge – direction unspecified
– is sacrosanct in Western culture. ‘The advancement of knowledge in biological
or behavioural sciences’ is a valid purpose for the use of experimental
animals under Britain’s 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act. But what
criteria determine this ‘need to know’, and hence the necessity for the
relevant animal experiments?

‘Necessity’ implies ‘in order to . . . ‘ which in turn implies a specific
goal. In the case of animal research, there is not one unified goal, but
many. Some of it is clearly directed at the prevention and relief of human
suffering, but not all. The paternalistic attitude of some spokespersons
for the biomedical researchers – who maintain that it is all for our (society’s)
benefit, but that we may not question its value or express an opinion –
is no longer tenable. To some extent, necessity is in the eye of the researcher,
and this view may diverge considerably from society’s view of what is necessary,
of what problems need solving.

Why should this concern us? The tools of biomedical research are living
animals, which puts the research in a different ethical category from studies
in Sanskrit or metallurgy. We may be unable to define animal sentience or
suffering other than in anthropomorphic terms, but we can fairly safely
say that animals would not voluntarily participate in many experiments.

The current law for protection of experimental animals hinges on the
cost-benefit equation. This is an advance over previous controls, but it
does not address the question of necessity or the need to know in any fundamental
sense. Provided …